NOTE: This is a guest post from a dear friend of mine. Please welcome Paige Burkes of Simple Mindfulness to the M2bH community!

Perhaps no two people will view happiness the same way, even if looking at it from the same window. Even if Paige and I share common perspectives, there are nuanced differences you will read below that you haven’t seen here before. It will be fun to hash out those differences in the comments. Join us!

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“It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.” ~ Charles Spurgeon

Are all rich people happy?

Are all poor people unhappy?

Are all people who volunteer and help others happy?

Are all people who live with tons of clutter unhappy?

We know that the answer to all of these questions is an unequivocal “no.” Yet we consistently buy the ideas that money, volunteering and de-cluttering, among any number of other ideas, will magically create happiness for us.

We subconsciously think that, if we simply do all the right things in the right ways (whatever “right” is), the happiness fairy will magically appear to us, touch us on the nose with her sparkly wand and we’ll suddenly be happy forever.

As silly as all this sounds, you know that you want to believe it and you’ve probably lived part of your life in an attempt to make it come true.

Newsflash! You can find happiness much more easily by implementing a little mindfulness into your life.

6 Steps to Unearth Your Happiness

1. Know that There’s Nothing to Find

Your happiness always has and always will live in your heart. It’s been with you since the time before you were born and there’s no way to get rid of it.

Think about it: What child was ever born unhappy? Pure of heart, babies know nothing but love and happiness.

As you grow up, how you choose to interpret and respond to your environment and life experiences dictates what happens to your happiness.

I know people who have been brought up in very wealthy homes, given all the luxuries, treated like kings and queens, and they’re miserable.

And I know people who ran away from troubled homes in their teens, lived on the streets with gangs, then spent their adult lives working with troubled youth while living on the poverty line themselves – and they couldn’t be happier.

2. Being Happy is a Choice

In every moment you’re making a conscious or subconscious choice about how you judge and interpret the people and things around you.

These things don’t “make” you feel anything. Your subconscious mind puts together all the data from your life up to now and projects an interpretation. You can choose to accept it or consciously create a new one on your own.

For example, if someone yells at me, I can choose to take it personally and get upset. I can make up all kinds of negative stories about the other person and why they don’t like me. I can feel unworthy of love because of their action. I can choose to interpret this person’s actions in a way that robs me of my happiness.

Or I can choose to believe that this person has had a bad day and is simply venting. Maybe someone yelled at them and they’re feeling bad and decided to take it out on me. I can choose to believe that their anger has nothing to do with me and everything to do with them. I can choose to retain my high level of happiness regardless of what others do or say to me.

3. Uncovering your Happiness

If you haven’t felt happy in a while, think about all the things you’ve added to your life that smother your happiness.

What relationships, habits and things have you created in your life that don’t serve you?

As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, many of us run around doing things that we’ve been told are supposed to make us happy and we wonder why it doesn’t always work.

What works for others may not work for you for many reasons. We all have different experiences, emotions, beliefs, values, backgrounds and what works for each person is based on their own rainbow soup.

Notice how the things that aren’t supporting your happiness are smothering you.

4. Determine your Core Values

To find what works for you, you’ll need to remove the layers of “should’s” you’ve been living by and identify who you are and what you’re about, regardless of what others think you should be.

Take some quiet, focused time to consider your highest values. What do you stand for? What are the unwavering principles that shape every decision you make? How would you define your character?

This is the most important part of the process.

5. Align your Life with your Values

Now that you’ve identified your core values, get rid of anything in your life that is not in alignment with those values.

This is the tough part, but without taking significant action on this step, your happiness will struggle to shine behind the cheap paint job of someone else’s expectations.

To make this easier for you, rather than trying to figure out what to remove, imagine you were just re-born with no prior baggage. You’re a brand new baby in an adult’s body.

Your happiness is naturally radiating. You feel joy and peace. You know who you are at your core. You know what your values are.

What people and things would you selectively put in your life that are in alignment with your values and who you are? Where and how would you live? What would your daily habits be?

This is called intentional living. You make very conscious choices about what goes into your life so that you don’t have to worry about “cleaning house” on a regular basis.

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Think about why de-cluttering only gives you a short-term happy fix. If you don’t change your habit of mindlessly buying and bringing home all sorts of random things, allowing them to build and create clutter, you eventually end up feeling the weight of all those things. You de-clutter and feel great for a day or two and then head back to the store to repeat the process.

What if you make more mindful choices about the things you bring home before you buy them? Consider creating a rule that, if you bring home something new, you have to get rid of something you already own. How important is that new purchase now? Will it truly enhance your life in the long term?

6. Allow your Happiness to Shine!

By removing the burdens, should’s, guilty obligations, soul-sucking relationships and unsupportive beliefs from your life, you create the freedom and space for your happiness to shine.

By only including the things that support your values and your happiness, you can’t help but radiate your innate happiness.

Get Real

Many people may think this sounds unrealistic. That it’s impossible to strip all the crap from their lives and live in such a Pollyanna-ish way.

This is simply a belief that has been adopted from our culture that says that we all have to live within the confines of other people’s expectations of us.

I’ve listened to cancer survivors who were told that they only had a few months to live. With nothing to lose, they radically changed their lives and quickly dumped anything or anyone that didn’t serve them. They were very intentional about who and what came into their lives.

In doing this, they created levels of happiness that they had never previously experienced. And they continue to live active lives decades after they were told that they had a few months to live.

I’ve also met people who simply couldn’t take living under the weight of societal expectations. These were high-flying executives and “respectable members of society.” They finally realized that it really doesn’t matter what other people think of them.

Their happiness is up to them and other people need to worry about their own happiness.

They created unconventional but incredibly happy lives for themselves by following their dreams and living in alignment with their values and unique purpose.

“Happiness depends upon ourselves.”~ Aristotle

You Have the Right to Be Happy

Our society sees people who are perpetually happy as anomalies, outcasts, weirdo’s. It’s as if we’re somehow being selfish by being happy – like there’s a limited amount of happiness to go around.

It’s OK to be happy and it’s OK to be happy all the time.

Nobody and nothing makes you feel anything. You decide how you feel in every moment.

Choose happiness.

How will the newborn you help you to reshape your life around your values and happiness?

Paige Burkes writes at Simple Mindfulness where she inspires her readers to see the world in a new light, experiencing life mindfully and inviting in more happiness and joy. Download her FREE Mindful Living Guide and learn how you can invite more joy, peace and happiness into your life. Check out her new Mindful Body Program, a comprehensive program that uses mindfulness principles to transform how you think about diet, exercise and health. It shows you how fun it is to be healthy.

I had that same impression, Dan. I suppose that sometimes we don;t really realize just what we have until one day we open our eyes wider than usual and see what’s always been there. It’s like seeking for something missing in our lives only to find it at home where it always was.

“Align your Life with your Values” – I am so out of whack in this department. As I read about how decluttering only is a short-term fix, I realized that is what I do when I choose what goes into my life. I only do a quick declutter and then let it fall back into chaos fairly quickly. For example, I will choose to be happy and for a few days I am more selective about where I let my mind go or how I allow people to affect me and I feel great! Then I fall right back into my cluttered mind, doubts and fears. Hmmm…interesting, I like how you made that connection.

It’s a great first step that you’ve noticed this for yourself Kimberly. The more often you notice and make a different choice the moment you notice, the more you’ll create a habit of being where you want to be. It takes time and patience but the more you practice, the easier it gets. It might help to keep visual reminders around you like pictures or words on paper, taped up in places where you’ll see them often.

Great sculptures are created one chip at a time. The highest mountains are climbed one step at a time. And a life of happiness, one consistent with our highest values is also fashioned one day, one effort, one decision at a time. The good news is that over time, as we work on our decision-making muscles, they grow stronger. Making values-based, happiness-affirming decisions become easier over time until they become automatic, natural, routine even.

This process can be accelerated by imaging ourselves in situations where in the past we would have faltered and instead, imagining ourselves making better decisions. This helps to rewire our brains until, again, positive decisions start more naturally replacing the old patterns.

Ultimately, Evan, the external would make no difference but the human aspect of our spiritual nature has an easier time when we’re not dealing with difficult people and situations. The fact that we control so little forces us to accept much of what is in our lives and learn to interpret it differently.

I agree with you that relation and connection are critical. It’s a matter of how we choose to do that and with what. Do we do it in a way that supports us or creates more drama?

External does not make a difference in how you feel, true. But it’s way easier to [choose to] feel happy when you create a pleasing external environment. This does not mean you need to change anyone (you can’t), you just need to choose who and what you want to see and meet.

I would add to what Paige said by suggesting that making changes to how we live changes us internally. The external, as I understand it, is more about weather and socioeconomic factors and the job or the neighbor and the like.

Still, I do have a question myself about #1 that I’ll address to Paige below in my own comment.

Beautiful! As Dan said, your post helps us see that happiness is not “out there.” It’s inside us all the time, our natural state. I’ll be sharing this on my 10 Steps FB page tomorrow! Thanks to you both!Galen Pearl recently posted … Seeking Silence in a Noisy World

I can’t wait to read your 10 Steps Galen! Sometimes I see people walk around with a cloud over them, like Pigpen in the Peanuts cartoons. I wonder if they know that this cloud can simply be blown away if they choose to.Paige | Simple Mindfulness recently posted … Why Your Motivations Aren’t Motivating You

Yes, Paige does write so beautifully, Galen. Your book sits on the back of the toilet (sorry!) of one of our bathroom where my wife picks it up from time to time for some inspiration. We’ve even read some of the passages to our 6 year old son.

Naturally I am completely aligned with this post, Paige. And what a delight to see you here. I love your straight-shooter-ness and the unique ability never to mince words in what you express.

At the risk of Ken coming after me with (fill in the blank as I can’t think of anything), I believe that Happiness is a DIY project. Nobody, but nobody can prevent one from deciding to be happy. So there’ll be obstacles. There will be naysayers. Why, there is our very own inner negative committee to jump on our dreams. Yet, we can zap them all and prove we can choose happiness.

My uncle, who was diagnosed with malignant duodenal cancer was told he had three months to live. I still remember today what he told the doctor. He told the doctor “I’ll live for 15 years and show you”. We didn’t laugh at the time as he was just out of surgery. But you know what? He lived for twenty more years.

My Mom, who was diagnosed with interstitial lung disease was given six months to live. She said, “What do you mean? My grandson is hardly six months old! I’ll need at least another ten!” She lived for twelve more. Too soon, still.

Seems like we can literally take life by the horns, use that soul magic we’re born with, if we choose to use it, and live life large, right?

Fabulous post, Paige. But then I love you any way!
Thank you, Ken. But then I love you any way!Vidya Sury recently posted … I Just Received A Gift

My mindful friend Vidya, you know the power of choice so well! It’s coincidental that you wrote about your uncle and mother choosing to have more time despite the doctors thinking otherwise (actually it’s not a coincidence as we’re so frequently on the same wavelength). I’ve been doing a lot of reading and some writing about how our thoughts and beliefs control our health – actually our cells – much more so than our genes, environment or anything else. It’s fascinating! And there’s evidence of it everywhere, if we choose to see it.

Love this, Vidya: “Seems like we can literally take life by the horns, use that soul magic we’re born with, if we choose to use it, and live life large, right?” And the stories of your family who have thumbed their noses at conventional medical diagnosis and gone on to live life is so inspiring. The mind and the human will are such impressive things. It reminded me of Norman Vincent Peale (I think!) who laughed himself into remission.

If we can just attune ourselves to our innards (something mindfulness certainly does), we can do so much more than we sometimes give ourselves credit for.

Oh, and don’t worry about me going after you with a pitchfork (sorry, you asked us to fill in the blank, after all, and that’s what came to mind ;)). I never attack people no matter how often they repeat truth.

That “laughing into remission” is something I believe in, Ken. It works. So far, I’ve been blessed only with minor ailments and I usually laugh my way (a little hysterically sometimes) out of it. My Mom and I actually spent hours laughing over almost nothings. If you see her photo, (devividya dot blogspot dot com) you will know what I mean. 🙂 Must be that nice connection between laughter/endorphins/happiness, right? I often joke with my folks that colds and other things run away from me because they can’t stand my cheerfulness.

Now that I know you won’t come after me with a pitchfork, I am relieved. I can’t run right now – I had an accident the day before yesterday. 😀Vidya Sury recently posted … I Just Received A Gift

Laughter is such a powerful medicine for sure. Relives stress, shoots endorphins everywhere we want endorphins shot and is just plain fun! Studies have even demonstrated a link between laughter and longevity and improved cognitive activity and better human relations.

Thank you so much for this… Its true in order to be happy we must first consider ourselves to be happy.. If we find everything we do to be fun then that only means we are living our lives happily and that’s good. Im 19 years old and I love living my life even if I live in a third world country. I might be sad sometimes but I know I always learn a lesson or two so.. I just love it 🙂

Thank u for opening my mind more,,

Whoever reads this view my blog and know why I think Life is Amazing and we should keep living happy 🙂

I agree with Paige, Joan. It’s a wonderful thing that you are so aware of your happiness at such a young age.

I would just caution that fun and happiness are not the same thing. While happy people certainly have lots of fun, not all those who have fun are happy. Some seek one thrill after another as a way to distract themselves from the quieter moments when they are more aware of who is staring back at them in the mirror.

I guess the difference is that fun is much more situational than happiness. It is tied to the thing we’re having fun doing. When the event is over, the memory of fun stays with us for a while, but fades.

On the other hand, happiness is enduring. It’s a state of being. We take it with us to go have fun or sit down with a good book or quietly think about life.

But it sounds like you are well on your way to creating this deeper kind of happiness. It shows in your statement that even when things are not just as you would like them, you “learn a lesson or two.” That attitude is so crucial to long-term happiness.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts here, Joan. So glad Paige was able to inspire you and open your mind further to even more happiness in your life. 🙂

That’s awesome that you figured this out at such a young age, Joan! I wouldn’t put the caveat “even if I live in a third world country” after you say that you love living your life. In the third world countries I’ve visited, I found it so refreshing how happy people are with what they have. People in the US may think they live in poverty but I could see how wealthy and happy those people felt.

Obviously, it doesn’t take money and a lot of stuff to make us happy. Sometimes it’s exactly that stuff that buries our happiness and keeps us from realizing that it’s there. Keep doing what you’re doing Joan. You’re on the right path!Paige | Simple Mindfulness recently posted … Make This Year Freakin’ Amazing! Here’s How (Win a Free Book!)

Nice tips, and I bet they could help a lot of people while being down or get in stuck. Sometimes the easiest way to re-discover our own happiness is to step out of our comfort zones and switch our views…Lilla recently posted … Fogbeültetés avagy implantáció

Those are great ideas Lilla! Getting out of our comfort zone allows us to feel what it’s like to be more than we’ve ever been. Doing something scary in one area of our life translates to a feeling a possibility in every area.

Shifting our focus away from our current unhappy state and toward helping others, taking on challenges and doing uncomfortable things can instantly change how we feel about ourselves and the world.Paige | Simple Mindfulness recently posted … To Create an Amazing Life, Scare Your Monkey Mind

I like that, Lilla. Sometimes we get in ruts and start to feel like we’ve somehow gotten ourselves stuck on a hamster wheel, just going around an round and round, doing the same ole thing over and over again.

Getting out of that rut, trying something new, challenging ourselves, pushing up against our comfort zones can be just what we need to take our lives and our happiness to the next level.

I also like what Paige said too. Sometimes all we need to do is shift our thinking, and all of a sudden what we thought was a hamster wheel isn’t anymore, whether that leads us to serving others or simply seeing our situation differently than before.

Hi Paige! What an awesome post. Thanks for sharing your wisdom here with the M2bH community!

I especially like the emphasis you place on aligning our lives with our values and then consistently making decisions that reflect that alignment. When we fail to take these steps, we start building a life on very insecure ground.

I do have a question for you, though. And it really is a question, because while I’ve read it many times on different sites, I’m not sure I understand it, at least not fully. As I hinted with Evan above, I question point #1: Know that there’s nothing to find.

I guess my question touches on two concepts. 1) Your evidence that we are naturally happy by referencing babies. I’m not sure that babies are born happy (at least not as I understand a define happiness). Most may be born content (those not abused in vitro, addicted to crack and the like), but it seems to me that self-awareness is necessary for real happiness. That might be nitpicking and irrelevant if it wasn’t connected to my larger question: 2) Being already happy, just not knowing it.

If happiness is the byproduct of how we think, what we believe about life and ourselves, and how we live (in line with our values, etc.), what about people living very out of sync with values of any kind, whose minds are filled with filthiness, anger, hatred, depression, and whose beliefs include things like, “I’m not worth a pile of you-know-what” and “The world is out to get me” and everything is everyone else’s fault”?

I think I get it with minor dissatisfaction with life. Something like I mentioned with Dan at the top of the comments, thinking there’s something more “out there” only to realize there never was anything more needed “out there.”

But I’m just not sure I understand how we are happy and just don’t know it if some people’s lives are deeply emotionally scarred and filled with anxiety and despair and loneliness and fear. It doesn’t seem consistent with what I think happiness is.

So there it is. My confusion bared. Look forward to better understanding this point of view from someone whose point of view I appreciate greatly! 🙂

When we are born, we have no stories, beliefs or value systems yet. We haven’t experienced much upon which to create these things. At the core we’re happy. It’s like when you first build a house. You put up the walls and paint them with their first coat of fresh, white paint (happiness).

Over the years we’re exposed to different people and experiences. We create our own internal stories about all this and how we choose to interpret everything in our lives. People are exposed to negative, hurtful people, are abandoned or abused or are taught that life is hard and bad by the people they spend their time with. With all this input and without some strong filters (which most people haven’t developed), we develop beliefs that lead to negative feelings about ourselves and the world.

Think back to that new house. Over the years, different people live in that house. Some are better at taking care of the place than others. Some draw nasty pictures on the walls. Some get the walls dirty. Each time someone else moves in, there’s a new layer of paint and damage underneath it. After years and years of layering on the paint and crud, everyone forgets what the wall looked like when it was first built. They can no longer see the fresh, clean white paint under the many layers of paint and crud. All they see is the top layer of paint through which you can see the crud underneath.

Until someone decides to scrape off all those layers of paint (negative, unwanted beliefs), the happiness will remain hidden. But when all the layers are removed, which is no easy task, the happiness can shine through again.

So happiness is what was always there before we smothered it with a lifetime of negative experiences and beliefs. Happiness is our natural state. When we speak of “choosing happiness,” what we’re really doing is choosing to remove all the cruddy layers of paint so the happiness can shine.

When I watch my three little kids, their “neutral” state is happiness. Not a giddy, laughing all the time kind of happiness but a state of contentment with a touch of joy. As they interact with the world, I can see them look to my husband and me and each other to determine how they should respond and what kinds of stories to create for themselves. They’re adding layers of paint and deciding how much, if any, crud to allow in each layer.

For me, happiness is the original state of being. It simply is. It doesn’t need to be created. It’s our job to keep it from getting too covered up. We choose to keep the muck away from it. To me, that’s what “choosing happiness” means.

I hope I’ve answered your question Ken. As with everything in life, this is simply my belief. There is no right answer. Go with whatever story works for you.

As Mathew Ferry says, we’re all just maker-uper’s. We make up stories and decide to believe them. If your current stories don’t work for you, make up a new one.

What a great reply, Paige. Took me awhile to get to it as the flu is currently beating up the whole family and end of semester grades are due (my day job!).

What a great analogy! It’s interesting because I’m currently working on a post that uses a house and paint and the like to discuss happiness as well, even if using it differently than you use it here.

To me, happiness is something deeper and more profound than a baby or young child can experience. I don’t think happiness, at least not in it’s highest most complete form, is simply the result of a carefree life of childhood abandon and acceptance and enjoyment. Those elements are certainly part of the equation, so to speak, but they don;t paint the whole picture.

Rather (or maybe in addition to), happiness is the result of feeling good about the person you are, the character you’ve fashioned, the values you adhere to, the meaning and purpose in life you pursue and create and recognize in the world. It is the offshoot of seeing the world as an opportunity and challenge to grow. It is the daily discovery of life as it opens up ever more broadly for us to see more deeply into its soul. It is living a life that makes other lives better for having lived it. I don’t think happiness at its highest potential can be experienced living a self-centered life of personal ambition and isolated self-indulgence.

So while children can certainly experience some of these conditions (sometimes better than we can–all that paint splashed on the walls!), they don’t have the maturity to experience other aspects of happiness at its highest level.

So I guess what I’m saying is that happiness lives on a continuum. Children in all their innocent freeness can certainly experience happiness. But their happiness is limited to a more superficial (though not insignificant) kind, one that doesn’t have the depth that one of character growth and purpose and meaning and leaving the world better than when you found it adds.

So I guess I can accept that we were all born with the ability to be happy as is. But I think the highest level of happiness requires work. It requires developing a sound character, largely overcoming some pretty natural inclinations children exhibit, like selfishness. It requires that we learn to think certain ways and interpret life certain ways and believe certain things about life and our roles within it.

I also believe there are children born into homes whose parents start splashing some paint of their own on the walls of their infant’s lives long before the baby has the ability to understand and make choices for themselves about paint colors and layers and the like. Some of these people would, it seems to me, find it very difficult to see the happiness that already exists within them since some have never experienced much of a glimmer of it before. Granted, these people are hopefully pretty rare, that they exist suggests to me that happiness can be something we learn to uncover and experience as we sand off the layers of cracked and worn paint from the inner walls of our lives. Again, taking a bit of work before the potential of happiness can begin to be seen.

Quick question to better understand your position: When you say happiness is our original state of being, is the original state you refer to at birth or in a sort of pre-life spirit condition? The reason I ask is that I believe kids have to be taught kindness and sharing and choosing long-run benefits over immediately gratifying pleasures. In that original form, I think we are set up to do happiness quite a bit of harm over time.

Would love to get your reaction to my thoughts though, Paige. I truly value your thinking and loved the paint analogy. I will definitely think this one over some more. 🙂

When I say that happiness is our original state of being, I see it as a pre-life spiritual way of being. Life (biologically and spiritually) starts way before the time we emerge from our mother’s womb.

Being happy isn’t judged by how children or adults behave in the world. While it may seem like we have to teach kids about kindness, sharing and the cultural norms of being a “good person,” I think they naturally figure a lot of that out on their own based on their environment. Being the parent of three little kids ages 3, 6 and 8, I’m fully aware of kids abilities to figure this stuff out (and not). My husband and I have become keenly aware of how environments affect kids’ development as we see how our kids work together and are happy together as compared to other kids their age.

I don’t think that the happiness that kids experience is superficial at all. The happiness that kids experience takes on different nuances as kids get older and their brains develop. Up until about the age of six, kids haven’t really developed the ability to screen their inputs so they basically take in everything as fact. That’s when the original programming of our subconscious takes place. From there, we learn varying levels of discernment and learn how to be in the world based on our experiences.

Like when you say that babies are “splashed with paint” at a very early age – an example would be if a parent or teacher told a child that they were stupid, shouldn’t have been born, can’t sign/paint/write, etc. That child takes in those messages as truth and carries them for the rest of their lives, regardless of how casually the adult meant it.

As we mature, the challenge is to remain in alignment with our True Self (our core values) despite our environment and experiences. Our culture teaches us to not stand out, to follow the crowd and be like everyone else. These lessons that come from every direction teach us not to trust our intuition or True Self. They teach us to not trust anything that might show that we’re different, when, in fact, we are all very different. And so it becomes more difficult to tap into the messages of our True Self and live a life in alignment with them. I think this is one of the biggest challenges in being happy.

Overall, Ken, I think we’re very much in agreement about happiness. We may use different words in certain cases but we’re saying the same things.

Maybe we should start a podcast about happiness to record our conversations. 🙂

Sorry for the tardy reply. I like your clarification of happiness being our original state. I agree that we preexisted our current mortal state, so it doesn’t take much to reach the same conclusion. I’m not confident enough about our preexistence to claim our state was one way or another, but it seems reasonable, for sure.

I guess I’m a little less optimistic about human nature than you are. I’ve seen too many documentaries of children raised in the wild or psychologists raising their kids in the 1960s without parental direction or authority and the effect such non-direction had on the moral and happiness development of the kids to believe children in a natural state would figure it out. But I’m sure that in the right environment of love and acceptance and the role models and examples of good parents living loving lives, they certainly can figure out a lot more than those who don’t. So here, I trust your kids have a huge advantage over some.

I guess I should clarify what I said about the superficiality of children’s happiness.

I meant that in a relative sense. We can deepen our happiness by becoming deeper people. Some find happiness in doing what they love. That can be deepened as we school ourselves to love serving others. We can experience a degree of happiness by adopting an optimistic attitude. Our happiness can deepen as we learn to be grateful even for the challenges and trials in our lives. So one level of happiness is relatively superficial compared to a deeper level.

So children whose happiness is not based on a life of character development and service certainly experience happiness. But it is not at the depth of those who have built a life of multiple sources of meaning and purpose. In other words, those nuances you speak of are exactly what I mean. A more nuanced life is a more mature one. So a less nuanced happiness is less deep and therefore relatively more superficial.

In the end, I do agree with you that we are more in alignment than not, basically saying the same thing. Thanks so much for the awesome post and the awesome dialogue here, Paige.

A splendid article. Happiness is indeed a choice. There are so many people who’ve gone through hell, who still manage to live happy lives.
Each day I tell myself how I choose to live my life and what emotions I choose to rule it. This helps me to keep focused on what’s good, peaceful and happy. It has nothing to do with what will or will not happen that day.Anne recently posted … How To Build Confidence In Positives

It sounds like you’ve figured out the happy thing, Anne. Yes, I have a relative who grew up with gangs and lived on the streets of a big city. She was exposed to all kinds of horrid things. Yet she has dedicated her life to helping kids who are currently in that situation and she’s one of the happiest people I know. I used to wonder how she did it until I finally understood that happiness is a choice, along with all of our other feelings.

Thankyou, some good tips. It can be hard to accept that it is already inside us when we have been taught all our lives “if you get this fancy car or this or that you will be happy”. When it is never true.

It definately is more of a letting go and getting rid of what doesn’t serve us instead of getting more ‘stuff’.

I am in the process of working out what I’m so far calling The Happiness Movement. Details are in the air still, but feel passionate about wanting to educate the world as to what happiness is and how to have more of it. So many people are so torn, looking for happiness in places it just doesn’t exist, growing increasingly cynical and hopeless because they get to the end of the street, right where everyone said happiness and success and achievement should have been and found little comfort and real joy.

You are so right, Ben. So much of pop culture focuses so much on owning this and doing that and living here or there in this or that house to have happiness. But such externals can’t produce what’s not already inside us.

Since the Industrial Revolution, the message has been that “more, better, bigger” is what will make us happy. That doesn’t feed our souls, it feeds an always-hungry economy that has to stop at some point.

As we learn to simplify our lives, we realize that happiness is much easier to find than we were led to believe.

Hi Paige, welcome to M2BH. I love what you have to say here. Too many people look for external factors to make them happy and spend their lives seeking happiness. Happiness is in the here and now, grasp it and enjoy.Neil Butterfield recently posted … Drink your milk &#8211; it is good for you

Thanks for the welcome Neil! Hoping we can all work together to spread the message that happiness is a choice away. Wouldn’t the world be a better place if everyone knew this?Paige | Simple Mindfulness recently posted … Sailing Through Life: How Not To Crash and Burn

This was a great article Paige. I may be contacting you soon to write for my magazine! And Ken, I loved this in one of your responses,

“Rather (or maybe in addition to), happiness is the result of feeling good about the person you are, the character you’ve fashioned, the values you adhere to, the meaning and purpose in life you pursue and create and recognize in the world. It is the offshoot of seeing the world as an opportunity and challenge to grow. It is the daily discovery of life as it opens up ever more broadly for us to see more deeply into its soul. It is living a life that makes other lives better for having lived it. I don’t think happiness at its highest potential can be experienced living a self-centered life of personal ambition and isolated self-indulgence.”

Thank you Lisa! I’d love to hear from you! We can share our love of yoga, marketing and other facets of midlife.

Discussions like these can help others to see that there’s no one way to achieve happiness and happiness is a bit different for everyone. Regardless of these differences, we all agree that happiness is a choice, it comes from inside us and nothing outside of us can make us happy. Overall, it’s about living in alignment with our True Self. Most of us simply need to learn how to listen inwardly to hear the whispers of our True Self and live in accordance with her teachings.Paige | Simple Mindfulness recently posted … The Art of Mindful Holiday Binging

Thanks so much, Lisa. Paige did do a wonderful job with this post. I was thrilled to get it. This kind of ongoing conversation about happiness is so important.

I totally agree with Paige that we all agree on the core principles of happiness. Happiness doesn’t exist “out there,” in the next purchase or the next friend or the next time someone finally truly loves us. It is inside each of us, in our thoughts and our attitudes and our choices, all under our own control. Those who think otherwise are victims to life, their happiness held hostage by whatever they don’t yet have or haven’t yet done or experienced.

Paige is one of my Happiness Heroes so I’m glad to have had this opportunity to introduce her thoughts more directly to the community.

Hello Paige, welcome to the website. I love what you say here. I spent years waiting for external stuff to make me happy and it never happened. Thankfully, I made the shift and since doing so, my life has improved considerably.Wade Balsdon recently posted … How to avoid having seconds

Congrats, Wade! I think most people likely start out life assuming happiness is in the new car or bigger house or better neighborhood and the like. It’s a shame happiness isn’t taught in high school, or earlier. So much of what we do is aimed at it and yet we’re never really told where to aim.

I love how posts like these always spark a discussion on whether happiness is already within us, or if changing our external circumstances is also a good way to seek happiness, Paige.

I’m a firm believer that BOTH are parts of a happy life:
– making your life as awesome as possible
– being as happy as possible with your current situation

In fact, I’ve read so many blog posts lately on “being happy with what you have” that I’m just itching to write a counter-post on how no amount of zen thinking will make you happy in a static situation, but instead how real happiness comes from constant striving and growth.

I like your thinking here, Vlad–both in terms of believing happiness requires both acceptance of current circumstances and requires growth. One of my taglines in the header here is “Grow with courage.” I don’t think happiness can be experienced anywhere near its potential without personal growth.

As for the guest post, I just reopened for guest posting here. Check out the guidelines, then send me what you write for a look. I look forward to reading more of your thinking on the topic.

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About Me

My name is Ken Wert, the founder of M2bH. My purpose here is to teach you how to live a richer life of greater purpose and meaning, of mind-blowing possibility and deeper, more soul-satisfying happiness than you ever dreamt was possible. Join us on this happy adventure as you learn how to unlock your hidden potential to enjoy the rewards of a life well lived. Read more ...